Chapter III: THE SOUTHERN ZONE.--Characterized by absence of Cyprinidae and (13)

IMOLA (anc. _Forum Cornelii_), a town and episcopal see of Emilia, Italy, in the province of Bologna, from which it is 21 m. S.E. by rail, 140 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 12,058 (town); 33,144 (commune). The cathedral of S. Cassiano has been modernized; it possesses interesting reliquaries, and contains the tomb of Petrus Chrysologus, archbishop of Ravenna (d. 451), a native of Imola. S. Domenico has a fine Gothic portal and S. Maria in Regola an old campanile. The town also contains some fine palaces. The communal library has some MSS., including a psalter with miniatures, that once belonged to Sir Thomas More. The citadel is square with round towers at the angles; it dates from 1304, and is now used as a prison. Imola has a large lunatic asylum with over 1200 inmates. Innocenzo Francucci (Innocenzo da Imola), a painter of the Bolognese school (1494-1549), was a native of Imola, and two of his works are preserved in the Palazzo del Comune. The Madonna del Piratello, 2 m. outside the town to the N.W., is in the early Renaissance style (1488); the campanile was probably built from Bramante's plans in 1506.

The ancient Forum Cornelii, a station on the Via Aemilia, is said by Prudentius, writing in the 5th century A.D., to have been founded by Sulla; but the fact that it belonged to the _Tribus Pollia_ shows that it already possessed Roman citizenship before the Social war. In later times we hear little of it; Martial published his third book of epigrams while he was there. In the Lombard period the name Imolas begins to appear. In 1480, after a chequered history, the town came into the possession of Girolamo Riario, lord of Forli, as the dowry of his wife Caterina Sforza, and was incorporated with the States of the Church by Caesar Borgia in 1500.

IMP (O. Eng. _impa_, a graft, shoot; the verb _impian_ is cognate with Ger. _impfen_, to graft, inoculate, and the Fr. _enter_; the ultimate origin is probably the Gr. [Greek: emphyein], to implant, cf. [Greek: emphytos], engrafted), originally a slip or shoot of a plant or tree used for grafting. This use is seen in Chaucer (_Prologue to the Monk's Tale_, 68) "Of fieble trees ther comen wrecched ympes." The verb "to imp" in the sense of "to graft" was especially used of the grafting of feathers on to the wing of a falcon or hawk to replace broken or damaged plumage, and is frequently used metaphorically. Like "scion," "imp" was till the 17th century used of a member of a family, especially of high rank, hence often used as equivalent to "child." The _New English Dictionary_ quotes an epitaph (1584) in the Beauchamp chapel at Warwick, "Heere resteth the body of the noble Impe Robert of Dudley ... sonne of Robert Erle of Leycester." The current use of the word for a small devil or mischievous sprite is due to the expressions "imp of Satan, or of the devil or of hell," in the sense of "child of evil." It was thus particularly applied to the demons supposed to be the "familiar" spirits of witches.

IMPATIENS, in botany, a genus of annual or biennial herbs, sometimes becoming shrubby, chiefly natives of the mountains of tropical Asia and Africa, but also found widely distributed in the north temperate zone and in South Africa. The flowers, which are purple, yellow, pink or white and often showy, are spurred and irregular in form and borne in the leaf-axils. The name is derived from the fact that the seed-pod when ripe discharges the seeds by the elastic separation and coiling of the valves. _Impatiens Noli-me-tangere,_ touch-me-not, an annual succulent herb with yellow flowers, is probably wild in moist mountainous districts in north Wales, Lancashire and Westmorland. _I. Roylei,_ a tall hardy succulent annual with rose-purple flowers, a Himalayan species, is common in England as a self-sown garden plant or garden escape. _I. Balsamina,_ the common balsam of gardens, a well-known annual, is a native of India; it is one of the showiest of summer and autumn flowers and of comparatively easy cultivation. _I. Sultani,_ a handsome plant, with scarlet flowers, a native of Zanzibar, is easily grown in a greenhouse throughout the summer, but requires warmth in winter.

IMPEACHMENT (O. Fr. _empechement, empeschement,_ from _empecher_ or _empescher,_ to hinder, Late Lat. _impedicare,_ to entangle, _pedica,_ fetter, _pes_, foot), the English form of judicial parliamentary procedure against criminals, in which the House of Commons are the prosecutors and the House of Lords the judges. It differs from bills of attainder (q.v.) in being strictly judicial. When the House of Commons has accepted a motion for impeachment, the mover is ordered to proceed to the bar of the House of Lords, and there impeach the accused "in the name of the House of Commons, and of all the Commons of the United Kingdom." The charges are formulated in articles, to each of which the accused may deliver a written answer. The prosecution must confine itself to the charges contained in the articles, though further articles may be adhibited from time to time. The Commons appoint managers to conduct the prosecution, but the whole House in committee attends the trial. The defendant may appear by counsel. The president of the House of Lords is the lord high steward, in the case of peers impeached for high treason; in other cases the lord chancellor. The hearing takes place as in an ordinary trial, the defence being allowed to call witnesses if necessary, and the prosecution having a right of reply. At the end of the case the president "puts to each peer, beginning with the junior baron, the questions upon the first article, whether the accused be guilty of the crimes charged therein. Each peer in succession rises in his place when the question is put, and standing uncovered, and laying his right hand upon his breast, answers, 'Guilty' or 'Not guilty,' as the case may be, 'upon my honour.' Each article is proceeded with separately in the same manner, the lord high steward giving his own opinion the last" (May's _Parliamentary Practice,_ c. xxiii.). Should the accused be found guilty, judgment follows if the Commons move for it, but not otherwise. The Commons thus retain the power of pardon in their own hands, and this right they have in several cases expressly claimed by resolution, declaring that it is not parliamentary for their lordships to give judgment "until the same be first demanded by this House." Spiritual peers occupy an anomalous position in the trial of peers, as not being themselves ennobled in blood; on the impeachment of Danby it was declared by the Lords that Spiritual peers have the right to stay and sit during proceedings for impeachment, but it is customary for them to withdraw before judgment is given, entering a protest "saving to themselves and their successors all such rights in judicature as they have by law, and by right ought to have." An impeachment, unlike other parliamentary proceedings, is not interrupted by prorogation, nor even by dissolution. Proceedings in the House of Commons preliminary to an impeachment are subject to the ordinary rules, and in the Warren Hastings case an act was passed to prevent the preliminary proceedings from discontinuance by prorogation and dissolution. A royal pardon cannot be pleaded in bar of an impeachment, though it is within the royal prerogative to pardon after the lords have pronounced judgment. The point was raised in the case of the earl of Danby in 1679, and the rule was finally settled by the Act of Settlement. Persons found guilty on impeachment may be reprieved or pardoned like other convicts. Impeachment will lie against all kinds of crimes and misdemeanours, and against offenders of all ranks. In the case of Simon de Beresford, tried before the House of Lords in 1330, the House declared "that the judgment be not drawn into example or consequence in time to come, whereby the said peers may be charged hereafter to judge others than their peers," from which Blackstone and others have inferred that "a commoner cannot be impeached before the Lords for any capital offence, but only for high misdemeanours." In the case of Edward Fitzharris in 1681, the House of Commons in answer to a resolution of the Lords suspending the impeachment, declared it to be their undoubted right "to impeach any peer or commoner for treason or any other crime or misdemeanour." And the House of Lords has in practice recognized the right of the Commons to impeach whomsoever they will. The procedure has, however, been reserved for great political offenders whom the ordinary powers of the law might fail to reach. It has now fallen into desuetude. The last impeachments were those of Warren Hastings (1788-1795) and Lord Melville (1806), but an unsuccessful attempt was made by Thomas C. Anstey to impeach Lord Palmerston in 1848. The earliest recorded instances of impeachment are those of Lord Latimer in 1376 and of Pole, earl of Suffolk, in 1386. From the time of Edward IV. to Elizabeth it fell into disuse, "partly," says Hallam, "from the loss of that control which the Commons had obtained under Richard II. and the Lancastrian kings, and partly from the preference the Tudor princes had given to bills of attainder or pains and penalties when they wished to turn the arm of parliament against an obnoxious subject." Revived in the reign of James I., it became an instrument of parliamentary resistance to the crown, and it was not unfrequently resorted to in the first three reigns after the Revolution.

In the United States the procedure of impeachment both in the national and in almost all of the state governments is very similar to that described above. The national constitution prescribes that the House of Representatives "shall have the sole power of impeachment" and that "the Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments." The House appoints managers to conduct the prosecution at the bar of the Senate, and the vote of the Senate is taken by putting the question separately to each member, who, during the trial, must be on oath or affirmation. In ordinary cases the president or president _pro tempore_ of the Senate presides, but when the president of the United States is on trial the presiding officer must be the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. A two-thirds vote is necessary for conviction. The president, vice-president or any civil officer of the United States may be impeached for "treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanours," and if convicted, is removed from office and may be disqualified for holding any office under the government in future. The officer after removal is also "liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law." The term "civil officers of the United States" has been construed as being inapplicable to members of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The president's pardoning power does not extend to officers convicted, on impeachment, of offences against the United States. Since the organization of the Federal government there have been only eight impeachment trials before the United States Senate, and of these only two--the trials of Judge John Pickering, a Federal District judge for the District of New Hampshire, in 1803, on a charge of making decisions contrary to law and of drunkenness and profanity on the bench, and of Judge W. H. Humphreys, Judge of the Federal District Court of Tennessee, in 1863, on a charge of making a secession speech and of accepting a judicial position under the Confederate Government--resulted in convictions. The two most famous cases are those of Justice Samuel Chase of the United States Supreme Court in 1805, and of President Andrew Johnson, the only chief of the executive who has been impeached, in 1868. There is a conflict of opinion with regard to the power of the House to impeach a Federal officer who has resigned his office, and also with regard to the kind of offences for which an officer can be impeached, some authorities maintaining that only indictable offences warrant impeachment, and others that impeachment is warranted by any act highly prejudicial to the public welfare or subversive of any essential principle of government. The latter view was adopted by the House of Representatives when it impeached President Johnson.

IMPERIAL CHAMBER (_Reichskammergericht_), the supreme judicial court of the Holy Roman Empire, during the period between 1495 and the dissolution of the Empire in 1806. From the early middle ages there had been a supreme court of justice for the Empire--the _Hofgericht_ (or _curia imperatoris_, as it were), in which the emperor himself presided. By his side sat a body of assessors (_Urtheilsfinder_), who must be at least seven in number, and who might, in solemn cases, be far more numerous,[1] the assessors who acted varying from time to time and from case to case. The Hofgericht was connected with the person of the emperor; it ceased to act when he was abroad; it died with his death. Upon him it depended for its efficiency; and when, in the 15th century, the emperor ceased to command respect, his court lost the confidence of his subjects. The dreary reign of Frederick III. administered its deathblow and after 1450 it ceased to sit. Its place was taken by the _Kammergericht_, which appeared side by side with the Hofgericht from 1415, and after 1450 replaced it altogether. The king (or his deputy) still presided in the Kammergericht and it was still his personal court; but the members of the court were now officials--the _consiliarii_ of the imperial _aula_ (or _Kammer_, whence the name of the court). It was generally the legal members of the council who sat in the Kammergericht (see under AULIC COUNCIL); and as they were generally doctors of civil law, the court which they composed tended to act according to that law, and thus contributed to the "Reception" of Roman law into Germany towards the end of the 15th century. The old Hofgericht had been filled, as it were, by amateurs (provided they knew some law, and were peers of the person under trial), and it had acted by old customary law; the Kammergericht, on the contrary, was composed of lawyers, and it acted by the written law of Rome. Even the Kammergericht, however, fell into disuse in the later years of the reign of Frederick III.; and the creation of a new and efficient court became a matter of pressing necessity, and was one of the most urgent of the reforms which were mooted in the reign of Maximilian I.

This new court was eventually created in 1495; and it bore the name of _Reichskammergericht_, or Imperial Chamber. It was distinguished from the old Kammergericht by the essential fact that it was not the personal court of the emperor, but the official court of the Empire (or _Reich_--whence its name). This change was a natural result of the peculiar character of the movement of reform which was at this time attempted by the electors, under the guidance of Bertold, elector of Mainz. Their aim was to substitute for the old and personal council and court appointed and controlled by the emperor a new and official council, and a new and official court, appointed and controlled by the diet (or rather, in the ultimate resort, by the electors). The members of the Imperial Chamber, which was created by the diet in 1495 in order to serve as such a court,[2] were therefore the agents of the Empire, and not of the emperor. The emperor appointed the president; the Empire nominated the assessors, or judges.[3] There were originally sixteen assessors (afterwards, as a rule, eighteen): half of these were to be doctors of Roman law, while half were to be knights; but after 1555 it became necessary that the latter should be learned in Roman law, even if they had not actually taken their doctorate.

Thus the Empire at last was possessed of a court, a court resting on the enactment of the diet, and not on the emperor's will; a court paid by the Empire, and not by the emperor; a court resident in a fixed place (until 1693, Spires, and afterwards, from 1693 to 1806, Wetzlar), and not attached to the emperor's person. The original intention of the court was that it should repress private war (_Fehde_), and maintain the public peace (_Landfriede_). The great result which in the issue it served to achieve was the final "Reception" of Roman law as the common law of Germany. That the Imperial Chamber should itself administer Roman law was an inevitable result of its composition; and it was equally inevitable that the composition and procedure of the supreme imperial court should be imitated in the various states which composed the Empire, and that Roman law should thus become the local, as it was already the central, law of the land.

The province of the Imperial Chamber, as it came to be gradually defined by statute and use, extended to breaches of the public peace, cases of arbitrary distraint or imprisonment, pleas which concerned the treasury, violations of the emperor's decrees or the laws passed by the diet, disputes about property between immediate tenants of the Empire or the subjects of different rulers, and finally suits against immediate tenants of the Empire (with the exception of criminal charges and matters relating to imperial fiefs, which went to the Aulic Council). It had also cognizance in cases of refusal to do justice; and it acted as a court of appeal from territorial courts in civil and, to a small extent, in criminal cases, though it lost its competence as a court of appeal in all territories which enjoyed a _privilegium de non appellando_ (such as, e.g. the territories of the electors). The business of the court was, however, badly done; the delay was interminable, thanks, in large measure, to the want of funds, which prevented the maintenance of the proper number of judges. In all its business it suffered from the competition of the Aulic Council (q.v.); for that body, having lost all executive competence after the 16th century, had also devoted itself exclusively to judicial work. Composed of the personal advisers of the emperor, the Aulic Council did justice on his behalf (the erection of a court to do justice for the Empire having left the emperor still possessed of the right to do justice for himself through his _consiliarii_); and it may thus be said to be the descendant of the old Kammergericht. The competition between the Aulic Council and the Imperial Chamber was finally regulated by the treaty of Westphalia, which laid it down that the court which first dealt with a case should alone have competence to pursue it.

See R. Schröder, _Lehrbuch der deutschen Rechtsgeschichte_ (Leipzig,
1904); J. N. Harpprecht, _Staatsarchiv des Reichskammergerichts_
(1757-1785); and G. Stobbe, _Reichshofgericht und Reichskammergericht_
(Leipzig, 1878). (E. Br.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] For instance, all the members of the diet might serve as
Urtheilsfinder in a case like the condemnation of Henry the Lion,
duke of Saxony, in the 12th century.

[2] The attempt to create a new and official council ultimately
failed.

[3] More exactly, the emperor nominates, according to the regular
usage of later times, a certain number of members, partly as emperor,
and partly as the sovereign of his hereditary estates; while the
rest, who form the majority, are nominated partly by the electors and
partly by the six ancient circles.

IMPERIAL CITIES OR TOWNS, the usual English translation of _Reichsstädte_, an expression of frequent occurrence in German history. These were cities and towns subject to no authority except that of the emperor, or German king, in other words they were immediate; the earliest of them stood on the demesne land of their sovereign, and they often grew up around his palaces. A distinction was thus made between a _Reichsstadt_ and a _Landstadt_, the latter being dependent upon some prince, not upon the emperor direct. The term _Freie Reichsstadt_, which is sometimes used in the same sense as _Reichsstadt_, is rightly only applicable to seven cities, Basel, Strassburg, Spires, Worms, Mainz, Cologne and Regensburg. Having freed themselves from the domination of their ecclesiastical lords these called themselves _Freistädte_ and in practice their position was indistinguishable from that of the _Reichsstädte_.

In the middle ages many other places won the coveted position of a _Reichsstadt_. Some gained it by gift and others by purchase; some won it by force of arms, others usurped it during times of anarchy, while a number secured it through the extinction of dominant families, like the Hohenstaufen. There were many more free towns in southern than in northern Germany, but their number was continually fluctuating, for their liberties were lost much more quickly than they were gained. Mainz was conquered and subjected to the archbishop in 1462. Some free towns fell into the hands of various princes of the Empire and others placed themselves voluntarily under such protection. Some, like Donauwörth in 1607, were deprived of their privileges by the emperor on account of real, or supposed, offences, while others were separated from the Empire by conquest. In 1648 Besançon passed into the possession of Spain, Basel had already thrown in its lot with the Swiss confederation, while Strassburg, Colmar, Hagenau and others were seized by Louis XIV.

Meanwhile the free towns had been winning valuable privileges in addition to those which they already possessed, and the wealthier among them, like Lübeck and Augsburg, were practically _imperia in imperio_, waging war and making peace, and ruling their people without any outside interference. But they had also learned that union is strength. They formed alliances among themselves, both for offence and for defence, and these _Städtebünde_ had an important influence on the course of German history in the 14th and 15th centuries. These leagues were frequently at war with the ecclesiastical and secular potentates of their district and in general they were quite able to hold their own in these quarrels. The right of the free towns to be represented in the imperial diet was formally recognized in 1489, and about the same time they divided themselves into two groups, or benches, the Rhenish and the Swabian. By the peace of Westphalia in 1648 they were formally constituted as the third college of the diet. A list drawn up in 1422 mentions 75 free cities, another drawn up in 1521 mentions 84, but at the time of the French Revolution the number had decreased to 51. At this time the Rhenish free cities were: Cologne, Aix-la-Chapelle, Lübeck, Worms, Spires, Frankfort-on-the-Main, Goslar, Bremen, Hamburg, Mühlhausen, Nordhausen, Dortmund, Friedberg and Wetzlar. The Swabian free cities were: Regensburg, Augsburg, Nuremberg, Ulm, Esslingen, Reutlingen, Nördlingen, Rothenburg-on-the-Tauber, Schwäbisch-Hall, Rottweil, Ueberlingen, Heilbronn, Memmingen, Gmünd, Dinkelsbühl, Lindau, Biberach, Ravensburg, Schweinfurt, Kempten, Windsheim, Kaufbeuern, Weil, Wangen, Isny, Pfullendorf, Offenburg, Leutkirch, Wimpfen, Weissenburg, Giengen, Gengenbach, Zell, Buchorn, Aalen, Buchau and Bopfingen. But a large proportion of them had as little claim to their exceptional positions as the pocket boroughs of Great Britain and Ireland had before the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832.

By the peace of Lunéville in 1801 Cologne, Aix-la-Chapelle, Worms and Spires were taken by France, and by the decision of the imperial deputation of 1803 six cities only: Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen, Augsburg, Frankfort-on-Main and Nuremberg, were allowed to keep their _Reichsfreiheit_, or in other words to hold directly of the Empire. This number was soon further reduced. On the dissolution of the Empire in 1806 Augsburg and Nuremburg passed under the sovereignty of Bavaria, and Frankfort was made the seat of a duchy for Karl Theodor von Dalberg, elector and archbishop of Mainz, who was appointed prince primate of the Confederation of the Rhine. When the German Confederation was established in 1815 Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen and Frankfort were recognized as free cities, and the first three hold that position in the modern German empire; but Frankfort, in consequence of the part it took in the war of 1866, lost its independence and was annexed by Prussia.

In the earlier years of their existence the free cities were under the jurisdiction of an imperial officer, who was called the _Reichsvogt_ or imperial advocate, or sometimes the _Reichsschultheiss_ or imperial procurator. As time went on many of the cities purchased the right of filling these offices with their own nominees; and in several instances the imperial authority fell practically into desuetude except when it was stirred into action by peculiar circumstances. The internal constitution of the free cities was organized after no common model, although several of them had a constitution drawn up in imitation of that of Cologne, which was one of the first to assert its independence.

For the history of the free cities, see J. J. Moser,
_Reichsstädtisches Handbuch_ (Tübingen, 1732); D. Hänlein,
_Anmerkungen über die Geschichte der Reichsstädte_ (Ulm, 1775); A.
Wendt, _Beschreibung der kaiserlichen freien Reichsstädte_ (Leipzig,
1804); G. W. Hugo, _Die Mediatisirung der deutschen Reichsstädte_
(Carlsruhe, 1838); G. Waitz, _Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte_ (Kiel,
1844 fol.); G. L. von Maurer, _Geschichte der Städteverfassung in
Deutschland_ (Erlangen, 1869-1871); W. Arnold, _Verfassungsgeschichte
der deutschen Freistädte_ (Gotha, 1854); P. Brülcke, _Die Entwickelung
der Reichsstandschaft der Städte_ (Hamburg, 1881); A. M. Ehrentraut,
_Untersuchungen über die Frage der Frei- und Reichsstädte_ (Leipzig,
1902); and S. Rietschel, _Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der deutschen
Stadtverfassung_ (Leipzig, 1905). See also the article COMMUNE.
(A. W. H.*)

IMPEY, SIR ELIJAH (1732-1809), chief justice of Bengal, was born on the 13th of June 1732, and educated at Westminster with Warren Hastings, who was his intimate friend throughout life. In 1773 he was appointed the first chief justice of the new supreme court at Calcutta, and in 1775 presided at the trial of Nuncomar (q.v.) for forgery, with which his name has been chiefly connected in history. His impeachment was unsuccessfully attempted in the House of Commons in 1787, and he is accused by Macaulay of conspiring with Hastings to commit a judicial murder; but the whole question of the trial of Nuncomar has been examined in detail by Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, who states that "no man ever had, or could have, a fairer trial than Nuncomar, and Impey in particular behaved with absolute fairness and as much indulgence as was compatible with his duty."

See E. B. Impey, _Sir Elijah Impey_ (1846); and Sir James Stephen,
_The Story of Nuncomar and the Impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey_
(1885).

IMPHAL, the capital of the state of Manipur (q.v.) in eastern Bengal and Assam, on the north-east frontier of India, situated at the confluence of three rivers. Pop. (1901) 67,903. It is really only a collection of villages buried amid trees, with a clearing containing the palace of the raja, the cantonments, and the houses of the few European residents.

IMPLEMENT (Lat. _implementum_, a filling up, from _implere_, to fill), in ordinary usage, a tool, especially in the plural for the set of tools necessary for a particular trade or for completing a particular piece of work (see TOOLS). It is also the most general term applied to the weapons and tools that remain of those used by primitive man. The Late Lat. _implementum_, more usually in the plural, _implementa_, was used for all the objects necessary to stock or "fill up" a house, farm, &c.; it was thus applied to furniture of a house, the vestments and sacred vessels of a church, and to articles of clothing, &c. The transition to the necessary outfit of a trade, &c., is easy. In its original Latin sense of "filling up," the term survives in Scots law, meaning full performance or "fulfilment" of a contract, agreement, &c.; "to implement" is thus also used in Scots law for to carry out, perform.

IMPLUVIUM, the Latin term for the sunk part of the floor in the atrium of a Greek or Roman house, which was contrived to receive the water passing through the compluvium (q.v.) of the roof. The impluvium was generally in marble and sunk about a foot below the floor of the atrium.

IMPOSITION (from Lat. _imponere_, to place or lay upon), in ecclesiastical usage, the "laying on" of hands by a bishop at the services of confirmation and ordination as a sign that some special spiritual gift is conferred, or that the recipient is set apart for some special service or work. The word is also used of the levying of a burdensome or unfair tax or duty, and of a penalty, and hence is applied to a punishment task given to a schoolboy. From "impose" in the sense of "to pass off" on some one, imposition means also a trick or deception. In the printing trade the term is used of the arrangement of pages of type in the "forme," being one of the stages between composing and printing.

IMPOST (through the O. Fr. from Lat. _impositum_, a thing laid upon another; the modern French is _impôt_), a tax or tribute, and particularly a duty levied on imported or exported merchandise (see TAXATION, CUSTOMS DUTIES, EXCISE, &c.). In architecture, "impost" (in German _Kaempfer_) is a term applied in Italian to the doorpost, but in English restricted to the upper member of the same, from which the arch springs. This may either be in the same plane as the arch mould or projecting and forming a plain band or elaborately moulded, in which case the mouldings are known as impost mouldings. Sometimes the complete entablature of a smaller order is employed, as in the case of the Venetian or Palladian window, where the central opening has an arch resting on the entablature of the pilasters which flank the smaller window on each side. In Romanesque and Gothic work the capitals with their abaci take the place of the impost mouldings.

IMPOTENCE (Lat. _impotentia_, want of power), the term used in law for the inability of a husband or wife to have marital intercourse. In English matrimonial law if impotence exists in either of the parties to a marriage at the time of its solemnization the marriage is voidable _ab initio_. A suit for nullity on the ground of impotence can only be brought by the party who suffers the injury. Third persons--however great their interest--cannot sue for a decree on this ground, nor can a marriage be impeached after the death of one of the parties. The old rule of the ecclesiastical courts was to require a triennial cohabitation between the parties prior to the institution of the suit, but this has been practically abrogated (_G._ v. _G._, 1871, L.R. 2 P.C.D. 287). In suits for nullity on the ground of impotence, medical evidence as to the condition of the parties is necessary and a commission of two medical inspectors is usually appointed by the registrar of the court for the purpose of examining the parties; such cases are heard _in camera_. In the United States impotence is a ground for nullity in most states. In Germany it is recognized as a ground for annulment, but not so in France.

IMPRESSIONISM. The word "Impressionist" has come to have a more general application in England than in France, where it took currency as the nickname of a definite group of painters exhibiting together, and was adopted by themselves during the conflict of opinion which the novelty of their art excited. The word therefore belongs to the class of nicknames or battle-names, like "Romanticist," "Naturalist," "Realist," which preceded it, words into which the acuteness of controversy infuses more of theoretical purport than the work of the artists denoted suggests to later times. The painters included in such a "school" differ so much among themselves, and so little from their predecessors compared with the points of likeness, that we may well see in these recurring effervescences of official and popular distaste rather the shock of individual force in the artist measured against contemporary mediocrity than the disturbance of a new doctrine. The "Olympia" of Manet, hooted at the Salon of 1865 as subversive of all tradition, decency and beauty, strikes the visitor to the Luxembourg rather as the reversion to a theme of Titian by an artist of ruder vision than as the demonstration of a revolutionary in painting. Later developments of the school do appear to us revolutionary. With this warning in a matter still too near us for final judgment, we may give some account of the Impressionists proper, and then turn to the wider significance sometimes given to the name.

The words _Impressioniste_, _Impressionisme_, are said to have arisen from a phrase in the preface to Manet's catalogue of his pictures exhibited in 1867 during the Exposition Universelle, from which he was excluded. "It is the effect," he wrote, "of sincerity to give to a painter's works a character that makes them resemble a protest, whereas the painter has only thought of rendering his impression." An alternative origin is a catalogue in which Claude Monet entitled a picture of sunrise at sea "Une Impression." The word was probably much used in the discussions of the group, and was caught up by the critics as characteristic.[1] At the earlier date the only meaning of the word was a claim for individual liberty of subject and treatment. So far as subject went, most, though not all of Manet's pictures were modern and actual of his Paris, for his power lay in the representation of the thing before his eye, and not in fanciful invention. His simplicity in this respect brought him into collision with popular prejudice when, in the "Déjeuner sur l'herbe" (1863), he painted a modern _fête champêtre_. The actual characters of his painting at this period, so fancifully reproached and praised, may be grouped under two heads. (1) The expression of the object by a few carefully chosen values in flattish patches. Those patches are placed side by side with little attenuation of their sharp collision. This simplification of colour and tone recalls by its broad effects of light and silhouette on the one hand Velasquez, on the other the extreme simplification made by the Japanese for the purposes of colour-printing. Manet, like the other painters of his group, was influenced by these newly-discovered works of art. The image, thus treated, has remarkable hardiness and vigour, and also great decorative breadth. Its vivacity and intensity of aspect is gained by the sacrifice of many minor gradations, and by the judgment with which the leading values have been determined. This matching of values produces, technically, a "solid" painting, without glazing or elaborate transparency in shadows. (2) During this period Manet makes constant progress towards a fair, clear colour. In his early work the patches of blond colour are relieved against black shadows; later these shadows clear up, and in place of an indeterminate brown sauce we find shadows that are colours. A typical picture of this period is the "Musique aux Tuileries," refused by the Salon of 1863. In this we have an actual out-of-doors scene rendered with a frankness and sharp taste of contemporary life surprising to contemporaries, with an elision of detail in the treatment of a crowd and a seizing on the chief colour note and patch that characterize each figure equally surprising, an effort finally to render the total high-pitched gaiety of the spectacle as a banquet of sunlight and colour rather than a collection of separate dramatic groups.

For life of Édouard Manet (1832-1883) see Edmond Bazire, _Manet_
(Paris, 1884). An idea of the state of popular feeling may be gained
by reading Zola's eloquent defence in _Mon Salon_, which appeared in
_L'Événement_ (1866) and _Édouard Manet_ (1867), both reprinted in
_Mes Haines_ (Paris, 1880). The same author has embodied many of the
impressionist ideals in Claude Lantier, the fictitious hero of
_L'Oeuvre_. Other writers belonging to Manet's group are Théodore
Duret, author of _Les Peintres français en 1867_ and _Critique
d'avant-garde_, articles and catalogue-prefaces reprinted 1885. See
also, for Manet and others, J. K. Huysman's _L'Art moderne_ (1883) and
_Certains_. Summaries of the literature of the whole period will be
found in R. Muther, _The History of Modern Painting_ (tr. London,
1896), not always trustworthy in detail, and Miss R. G. Kingsley, _A
History of French Art_ (1899). For an interesting critical account see
W. C. Brownell, _French Art_ (1892).

The second period, to which the name is sometimes limited, is complicated by the emergence of new figures, and it is difficult as yet, and perhaps will always remain difficult, to say how much of originality belongs to each artist in the group. The main features are an intenser study of illumination, a greater variety of illuminations, and a revolution in _facture_ with a view to pressing closer to a high pitch of light. Manet plays his part in this development, but we shall not be wrong probably in giving to Claude Monet (b. 1840) the chief rôle as the instinctive artist of the period, and to Camille Pissarro (b. 1830) a very large part as a painter, curious in theory and experiment. Monet at the early date of 1866 had painted a picture as daring in its naïve brutality of out-of-door illumination as the "Déjeuner sur l'herbe." But this picture has the breadth of patch, solidity and suavity of paste of Manet's practice. During the siege of Paris (1870-71) Monet and Pissarro were in London, and there the study of Turner's pictures enlarged their ideas of the pitch in lighting and range of effect possible in painting, and also suggested a new handling of colour, by small broken touches in place of the large flowing touches characteristic of Manet. This method of painting occupied much of the discussion of the group that centred round Manet at the Café Guerbois, in the Batignolles quarter (hence called _L'École de Balignolles_). The ideas were: (1) Abolition of conventional brown tonality. But all browns, in the fervour of this revolt, went the way of conventional brown, and all ready-made mixtures like the umbers, ochres, siennas were banished from the palette. Black itself was condemned. (2) The idea of the spectrum, as exhibiting the series of "primary" or "pure" colours, directed the reformed palette. Six colours, besides white, were admitted to represent the chief hues of the spectrum. (3) These colours were laid on the canvas with as little previous mixture on the palette as possible to maintain a maximum of luminosity, and were fused by touch on the canvas as little as possible, for the same reason. Hence the "broken" character of the touch in this painting, and the subordination of delicacies of form and suave continuity of texture to the one aim of glittering light-and-colour notation. Justification of these procedures was sought in occasional features of the practice of E. Delacroix, of Watteau, of J. B. Chardin, in the hatchings of pastel, the stipple of water-colour. With the ferment of theory went a _parti pris_ for translating all effects into the upper registers of tone (cf. Ruskin's chapter on Turner's practice in _Modern Painters_), and for emphasizing the colour of shadows at the expense of their tone. The characteristic work of this period is landscape, as the subject of illumination strictly observed and followed through the round of the day and of the seasons. Other pictorial motives were subordinated to this research of effect, and Monet, with a haystack, group of poplars, or church front, has demonstrated the variety of lighting that the day and the season bring to a single scene. Besides Pissarro, Alfred Sisley (1840-1899) is a member of the group, and Manet continues his progress, influenced by the new ideas in pictures like "Le Linge" and "Chez le Père Lathuille."

Edmond Degas (b. 1834), a severe and learned draughtsman, is associated with this landscape group by his curiosity in the expression of momentary action and the effects of artificial illumination, and by his experiments in broken colour, more particularly in pastel. The novelty of his matter, taken from unexplored corners of modern life, still more the daring and irony of his observation and points of view, and the strangeness of his composition, strongly influenced by Japanese art, enriched the associations now gathering about the word "impressionist." Another name, that of Auguste Renoir (b. 1841), completes the leading figures of the group. Any "school" programme would be strained to breaking-point to admit this painter, unless on the very general grounds of love of bright colour, sunlit places and independence of vision. He has no science of drawing or of tone, but wins a precarious charm of colour and expression.

The landscape, out-of-doors line, which unites in this period with
Manet's line, may be represented by these names: J. B. Corot, J. B.
Jongkind, Boudin, Monet. Monet's real teacher was Eugène Boudin
(1824-1898), (See Gustave Cahen's _Eugène Boudin_, Paris, 1900). They,
and others of the group, worked together in a painters' colony at
Saint Simeon, near Honfleur. It is usual to date the origin of
_plein-air_ painting, i.e. painting out-of-doors, in an out-of-doors
key of tone, from a picture Manet painted in the garden of de Nittis,
just before the outbreak of war in 1870. This dates only Manet's
change to the lighter key and looser handling. It was Monet who
carried the practice to a logical extreme, working on his canvas only
during the effect and in its presence. The method of Degas is
altogether different, viz., a combination in the studio from
innumerable notes and observations. It will be evident from what has
been said above that impressionistic painting is an artistic ferment,
corresponding to the scientific research into the principles of light
and colour, just as earlier movements in painting coincided with the
scientific study of perspective and anatomy. Chevreul's famous book,
already referred to, _De la loi du contraste simultané des couleurs_
(1838), established certain laws of interaction for colours adjacent
to one another. He still, however, referred the sensations of colour
to the three impossible "primaries" of Brewster--red, blue and yellow.
The Young-Helmholtz theory affected the palette of the Impressionists,
and the work of Ogden Rood, _Colour_ (Internat. Scientific Series,
1879-1881), published in English, French and German, furnished the
theorists with formulae measuring the degradation of pitch suffered by
pigments in mixture.

The Impressionist group (with the exception of Manet, who still fought
for his place in the Salon) exhibited together for the first time as
L'Exposition des Impressionistes at Nadar's, Boulevard des Capucines,
in 1874. They were then taken up by the dealer Durand-Ruel, and the
succeeding exhibitions in 1876, 1877, 1879, 1880, 1881, 1882 and 1886
were held by him in various galleries. The full history of these
exhibitions, with the names of the painters, will be found in two
works: Félix-Fénéon, _Les Impressionistes en 1886_ (Paris, 1886), and
G. Geffroy, _La Vie artistique_ ("Histoire de l'impressionisme," in
vol. for 1894). See also G. Lecomte, _L'Art impressionists d'après la
collection privée de M. Durand-Ruel_ (Paris, 1892); Duranty, _La
Peinture nouvelle_ (1876). Besides the names already cited, some
others may be added: Madame Berthe Morisot, sister-in-law of Manet;
Paul Cézanne, belonging to the Manet-Pissarro group; and, later,
Gauguin. J. F. Raffaëlli applied a "characteristic" drawing, to use
his word, to scenes in the dismal suburbs of Paris; Forain, the
satiric draughtsman, was a disciple of Degas, as also Zandomeneghi.
Miss Mary Cassatt was his pupil. Caillebotte, who bequeathed the
collection of Impressionist paintings now in the Luxembourg, was also
an exhibitor; and Boudin, who linked the movement to the earlier
schools.

The first exhibitions of the Impressionists in London were in 1882 and
1883, but their fortunes there cannot be pursued in the present
article, nor the history of the movement beyond its originators. This
excludes notable figures, of which M. Besnard may be chosen as a type.

In Manet's painting, even in the final steps he took towards "la peinture claire," there is nothing of the "decomposition of tones" that logically followed from the theories of his followers. He recognized the existence in certain illuminations of the violet shadow, and he adopted in open-air work a looser and more broken touch. The nature of his subjects encouraged such a handling, for the painter who attempts to note from nature the colour values of an elusive effect must treat form in a summary fashion, still more so when the material is in constant movement like water. Moreover, in the river-side subjects near Paris there was a great deal that was only pictorially tolerable when its tone was subtracted from the details of its form. Monet's painting carries the shorthand of form and broken colour to extremity; the flowing touch of Manet is chopped up into harsher, smaller notes of tone, and the pitch pushed up till all values approach the iridescent end of the register. It was in 1886 that the _doctrinaire_ ferment came to a head, and what was supposed to be a scientific method of colour was formulated. This was _pointillisme_, the resolution of the colours of nature back into six bands of the rainbow or spectrum, and their representation on the canvas by _dots_ of unmixed pigment. These dots, at a sufficient distance, combine their hues in the eye with the effect of a mixture of coloured _lights_, not of pigments, so that the result is an increase instead of a loss of luminosity. There are several fallacies, however, theoretical and practical, in this "spectral palette" and pointillist method. If we depart from the three primaries of the Helmholtz hypothesis, there is no reason why we should stop at six hues instead of six hundred. But pigments follow the spectrum series so imperfectly that the three primaries, even if we could exactly locate them, limit the palette considerably in its upper range. The sacrifice of black is quite illogical, and the lower ranges suffer accordingly. Moreover, it is doubtful whether many painters have followed the laws of mixture of lights in their dotting, e.g. dotting green and red together to produce yellow. It may be added that dotting with oil pigment is in practice too coarse and inaccurate a method. This innovation of _pointillisme_ is generally ascribed to George Seurat (d. 1890), whose picture, "La Grande Jatte," was exhibited at the Rue Laffitte in 1886. Pissarro experimented in the new method, but abandoned it, and other names among the _Pointillistes_ are Paul Signac, Vincent van Gogh, and van Rysselberghe. The theory opened the way for endless casuistries, and its extravagances died out in the later exhibition of the _Indépendants_ or were domesticated in the Salon by painters like M. Henri Martin.

The first modern painter to concern himself scientifically with the
reactions of complementary colours appears to have been Delacroix (J.
Leonardo, it should be remembered, left some notes on the subject). It
is claimed for Delacroix that as early as 1825 he observed and made
use of these reactions, anticipating the complete exposition of
Chevreul. He certainly studied the treatise, and his biographers
describe a dial-face he constructed for reference. He had quantities
of little wafers of each colour, with which he tried colour effects, a
curious anticipation of pointillist technique. The pointillists claim
him as their grandfather. See Paul Signac, "D'Eugène Delacroix au
Néo-Impressionnisme" (_Revue Blanche_, 1898). For a fuller discussion
of the spectral palette see the _Saturday Review_, 2nd, 9th and 23rd
February and 23rd March 1901.

In England the ideas connected with the word Impressionism have been refracted through the circumstances of the British schools. The questions of pitch of light and iridescent colour had already arisen over the work of Turner, of the Pre-Raphaelites, and also of G. F. Watts, but less isolated and narrowed, because the art of none of these limited itself to the pursuit of light. _Pointillisme_, after a fashion, existed in British water-colour practice. But the Pre-Raphaelite school had accustomed the English eye to extreme definition in painting and to elaboration of detail, and it happened that the painting of James M'Neill Whistler (Grosvenor Gallery, 1878) brought the battle-name Impressionism into England and gave it a different colour. Whistler's method of painting was in no way revolutionary, and he preferred to transpose values into a lower key rather than compete with natural pitch, but his vision, like that of Manet under the same influences, Spanish and Japanese, simplified tone and subordinated detail. These characteristics raised the whole question of _the science and art of aspect in modern painting_, and the field of controversy was extended backwards to Velasquez as the chief master of the moderns. "Impressionism" at first had meant individualism of vision, later the notation of fugitive aspects of light and of movement; now it came to mean breadth in pictorial vision, all the simplifications that arise from the modern analysis of aspect, and especially the effect produced upon the parts of a picture-field by attending to _the impression of the whole_. Ancient painting analyses aspect into three separate acts as form, tone and colour. All forms are made out with equal clearness by a conventional outline; over this system of outlines a second system of light and shade is passed, and over this again a system of colours. Tone is conceived as a difference of black or white added to the tints, and the colours are the definite local tints of the objects (a blue, a red, a yellow, and so forth). In fully developed modern painting, instead of an object analysed into sharp outlines covered with a uniform colour darkened or lightened in places, we find an object analysed into a number of surfaces or planes set at different angles. On each of these facets the character of the object and of the illumination, with accidents of reflection, produces a patch called by modern painters a "value," because it is colour of a particular value or tone. (With each difference of tone, "value" implies a difference of hue also, so that when we speak of a different tone of the same colour we are using the word "same" in a loose or approximate sense.) These planes or facets define themselves one against another with greater or less sharpness. Modern technique follows this modern analysis of vision, and in one act instead of three renders by a "touch" of paint the shape and value of these facets, and instead of imposing a uniform ideal outline at all their junctions, allows these patches to define themselves against one another with variable sharpness.